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T-Mobile Unveils Cheaper, More Basic 'Simply Prepaid' Phone Plans

The new Simply Prepaid mobile phone plans offer more data for less money and fewer added features than T-Mobile's Simple Choice prepaid phone plans.

T-Mobile has unveiled cheaper prepaid mobile phone plans for customers who want service without paying extra for features including free international texting and free music streaming.

Starting at $40 per month, the new Simply Prepaid plans, with monthly 4G LTE data allotments of 1GB, 3 GB or 5GB, were unveiled by the carrier in a Jan. 15 announcement as a way to offer customers more choices for services that better fill their needs. All three Simply Prepaid plans offer unlimited data, talk and text. All data use beyond the monthly 4G LTE allotment is provided at lower 128K speeds under the plans.

The new plans are priced at $40 per month for the 1GB accounts, $50 per month for 3GB accounts and $60 per month for 5GB accounts.

"There's a reason the Un-carrier continues to be Number 1 in prepaid, and it starts with our willingness to break the rules and give customers better choices," John Legere, president and CEO for T-Mobile, said in a statement. "We will never stop eliminating customer pain points. The 1.2 million net new prepaid customers who joined T-Mobile last year already see that value, and we have no plans to stop there."

Further reading

The new Simply Prepaid plans will be available to customers starting Jan. 25 in the United States.

The new prepaid offerings differ from T-Mobile's existing Simple Choice plans by leaving out several features that some users may not want, including free international texting capabilities and a free music streaming feature that lets users download their music without having to use up their 4G LTE data allotments each month.

Simple Choice customers who get those extra features also pay a bit more for their accounts—$50 per month with up to 1GB of 4G LTE data, $60 a month with up to 3GB of data, $70 a month with up to 5GB of data or $80 a month with unlimited 4G LTE data, according to T-Mobile.

In December 2014, T-Mobile unveiled a data rollover program for customers who pay for at least 3GB of 4G LTE high-speed data each month. Under the program, which starts this month, customers will be able to save their unused high-speed data plan allocations each month and roll it over for use in future months, according to an earlier eWEEK report. The new feature, which T-Mobile is calling "data stash," is for new and existing customers, including individuals, families and businesses, who have postpaid Simple Choice plans. The offer also includes a free one-time 10GB extra data allotment for use in the first 12 months. After customers use up the free 10GB bonus data allotment, their accounts will begin accruing any leftover data from their monthly data plans.

In October 2014, T-Mobile reported that it added 2.3 million new overall customers in the third quarter of 2014 as the company boosted revenue to $7.35 billion, an increase of 9.9 percent from the $6.68 billion in revenue posted in the same quarter in 2013. The company also touted the addition of 10 million new customers during the last six quarters. The latest 2.3 million net customer additions include 1.4 million branded postpaid net additions and 411,000 branded prepaid net additions, according to T-Mobile. Postpaid additions are customers who pay after a month's service interval has been completed, while prepaid customers pay for their services in advance.